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October 9, 2006
Whose Needs Are Being Met? by Mary Davis
CPE programs in institutional settings have always grappled with giving to God what is Gods and to Caesar what is Caesars. The balance has been at different percentages in our history; at present, Caesar is winning.
The classic CPE question, Whose needs are being met? might best be answered today: JCAHOs. DOEs. QMs. Press-Ganeys. Providing an educational program in the midst of todays highly regulated standards lends to training students to be pastorally functional before their pastoral identity is sufficiently integrated. Use of self as a resource in ministry? Maybe later, after I figure out this interdisciplinary charting tool, and attend this patient-satisfaction committee meeting, and study these smart cards in case JCAHO visitors ask me a question.
The challenges of providing Summer and Extended CPE units given the high level of professionalism required by the complexity of our clinical setting and my recent communal assessment of residents entering their third and fourth units led me to reflect on these issues. The students and residents are competent, caring ministers. They can peer with other disciplines. They can effectively use a spiritual assessment tool and make a passable pastoral plan. Their understanding of self as the principal resource in ministry (CPSP 230.2), their awareness of themselves as minister (ACPE 240.1), and integration of personal and pastoral identity (NACC 350.34) are less developed. The action-reflection-integration model of CPE becomes rather one-dimensional in the fast-paced, high acuity environment of our CPE Center. Action is the operative word. Time for reflection and integration becomes a challenge and luxury in the immensity of needs and the accompanying documentation required.
Many of us know the truism that it was only after getting through the certification process that we could finally be the whole person we were called to be in our ministry of supervision. Theres a lot of truth to that social conditions, systems and structures demand a certain type of response. The very structures and systems guiding and supporting CPE programs today are contributing to a change in how we formerly preferred to form ministers. We previously focused on CPE units one and two to provide integration of personal and pastoral identity, while the latter units focused on pastoral functioning and specialization. Given the need to get students up to speed in settings with high acuity, technology, and administrative expectations has led to a reversal of sorts.
I dont think this is necessarily bad. Perhaps thats because I view CPE in a developmental way, and recognize that learning can be valuable prior to the realization of the personal meaning of such learning. I continue to come to greater understanding of who I am and how that affects my ministry, 27 years post my CPE beginnings. I continue to find new depths of meaning and application to the theories, practices and standards I have followed for years.
I trust that our present and future students and programs can find ways to integrate personally and professionally within the social conditions, systems and structures we serve. It will require continued engagement with the agencies which seek to define our training, careful and prayerful discernment of the effects of institutionalism on pastoral formation, and a willingness to find a soul-enhancing balance of law and gospel in our ministry of supervision.
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Mary D. Davis, NACC and CPSP CPE Supervisor is located in CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health Care, San Antonio, Texas.
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at October 9, 2006 10:45 AM